


White Lilies and Funeral Pyres

by lookoutlovers22



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Character Death, F/M, Hanahaki Disease, Like so much angst, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-12 02:47:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29877930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lookoutlovers22/pseuds/lookoutlovers22
Summary: Hermione is sent back to the past on a mission to kill Tom Riddle and prevent the outcome of a future so dark and horrible, and loses herself along the way.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Tom Riddle
Comments: 1
Kudos: 25





	White Lilies and Funeral Pyres

**Author's Note:**

> Hello and welcome back to another episode of 'Emma writes subpar fanfiction'! Welcome to the story, and I hope you enjoy.
> 
> I own neither Tom, Hermione, Harry, and Ginny, nor the Harry Potter Franchise. Just a little PSA, in case you didn't know.

Hermione had travelled back in time with a mission – kill He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, and then travel back to her time. The back-up plan would be to travel back to the future in the worst case scenario that she would be found out, and kill _herself_ if she was unable to do either. It was straightforward, to the point, and infallible for the most part. She would not waver, she would not fall for his wiles, and, most of all, she would not catch _feelings_.

She had scoffed at Lupin when he had told her that. How fucking _wrong_ she was to scoff at Lupin when he told her that. Bordering on imbecilic, and if she had believed in such things such as reading tea leaves and karma, she would think that this was some sort of sick joke that the universe was playing on her. How sick and dark and fucking _twisted_ of the universe to play this cruel joke on her.

* * *

“What do you mean to do after you get out of Hogwarts, Hermione?” Tom had asked as he lied down on the grass next to her, one arm propped on an elbow and eyes looking down at her above the arch of his pointed nose. “Would you go into the Ministry, find a _husband_ ,” he had spit the last word out with some sense of anger in his voice, and Hermione quickly put out the thought that he might be jealous. “Stay here and teach?”

She looked to the sky and pondered for a minute. How would he react if she had told him that she would not make it out of Hogwarts, not this year at least, and that she would go back to her time and mourn someone she shouldn’t have met in the first place?

“I don’t know. I haven’t planned that far ahead… but I guess I would like to travel, do some research and see the world for myself.” She said, and he nodded to her and pretended to inspect his nails. “I’ve always wanted to go to Egypt, see the tombs for myself. Perhaps I’ll go to France and look at the catacombs, or to the Philippines to learn more about the ancient cultures buried deep within the mountain forests. I guess I would like to… explore.”

He hummed and looked at her intently. “And would you do it alone? It seems like it would be difficult to do alone.”

“I’ve never really had much fear of going at anything alone.” Hermione said quietly. _I’m here, aren’t I?_ but she didn’t speak that one aloud.

* * *

The first time she coughed up a petal, it was 1998 and she was standing on the balcony of an extravagant hotel in Paris, with a bottle of wine in one hand and the blasted bloom in the other. She let the damn thing fly out of her hand and into the nighttime wind, where it travelled atop the cheek of a dark haired stranger laying asleep on the expensive mattress she had paid for.

She wanted to convince herself it was a mistake… surely it was a mistake. But no matter how hard she tried or how many bottles of absinthe and wine and champagne she opened up, the memory of him sprawled out in the spring sun would not ever leave her mind.

* * *

“If you had the chance to… would you want to build the world from scratch?” Tom asked quietly, as he traced circles on her bare shoulder. Behind them, the waning moonlight shined true on their blanketed bodies. “Would you burn it all down just to piece it back together again?”

 _You are the world._ Hermione thought, as she glanced up at him through lidded lashes. “No. I don’t much care for the loss of human life.” she joked, burying her head in the space between his chin and his chest. “I think that I would much rather change the way it is now, to fit the vision I had of it in my mind.”

“And what if I said that I…”

“Yes?”

He sighed and looked down at her, tucked a lock of her hair slowly behind her ear. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”

* * *

Slowly, they had appeared more and more frequently. She would be doing the dishes and she would cough up pure, white flowers, and she would break all of the plates and throw all of the glasses all around her, one by one. And sometimes Ginny would find her there, and she would try to comfort Hermione, but she wouldn’t ever understand what she had been through, what she had done in order to ensure she wouldn’t have to go through being possessed by a boy with too much power and not enough time.

Sometimes she and Harry would drink – and sometimes she would tell him that _I saved your life, you know? You would have died without me_ , and he would look at her with pity, but still with love, and she would cry herself to sleep when she thought about how much Harry looked like Tom in those moments.

* * *

“I want to marry you.” Tom had whispered one day, as white lilies bloomed irrationally in the flowering fields behind him. His hair was a dark as night, and his skin glowed as purely as white diamonds in the sun. “And I would like to tell you the full extent of what I have done, and I would like you to still love me regardless of what I’ve done. And some days I think it would have been so much easier to not feel anything for you, to be as cruel and cold as I was before you.”

“Tom…”

“But I think that if I tell you about all of the awful things I have done, you will hate me. And I wouldn’t be able to bear it, you hating me. And it will drive me insane, more insane than I already am, and I will have to… I will have to…”

“Tom…”

“Because, the truth of it is that I am nothing if not evil. I love you, and I care for you, but I cannot say the same of any other human being. And if someone hurt you, I will hurt them tenfold and peel their skins from their bodies just to hear them scream, just so they know what hurt they’ve brought upon themselves and even then I would think that they deserved more. And I would let the whole world burn behind me if it only meant that I could recreate it with you… _hell_ , I would let the world burn if it meant I could have you.”

“Tom.” Hermione said, tears streaming down her face. “This is the most horrible proposal anyone has ever received.”

“It is as horrible as it is honest.”

“I don’t want nor need you to destroy the world for me.”

“Would you prefer it if I took it back, then?” He seethed.

“I would prefer it if we never spoke of this again.”

* * *

Sometimes, as she ponders her imminent death, she thinks that she should have married him while he was offering. Sometimes she thinks that it could have been enough to change the future enough and that it would allow her to be happy in the past and in his arms, where she wanted to be. But she knows that wouldn’t be true, that his motivations might have changed but the events have not. Not when she discovered that pulsating ring and the warm journal he had always written in.

She remembers the chill that seemed to emanate from the Room of Requirement when she had burnt that thing down to a crisp, monstrous fire swirling around her as the journal went cold and the ring stopped pulsing, heartbeats slowing down to a spot as the dark tendril’s of Tom Riddle’s soul caressed her cheeks like a lover would.

She had her mission, and he had his ambitions. One could not live while the other survived.

She did not expect the flowers, though, just as she did not expect the thorns.

* * *

“You know.” She had said, breathlessly, with shaking voice. “You knew all along. You knew I had to do this. And you let me do it anyway, you let me get this far.”

Her wand was pointed towards his throat, and Tom thought that this was perhaps the most beautiful he had or will ever see her. Eyes bright, hair wild, white lilies dying all around them, and he had loved her more than anything else.

“You let me worm my way under your skin and let me peel you away layer by layer and you _asked me to marry you_ and you told me you would let the world burn to dust for me in a field of flowers _and you are still letting me kill you_. Why?”

He stared at her, for long, long moment, and broke into a smile. “I wanted to hurt you.”

“Congratulations, then.” She seethed. “You broke my fucking heart.”

“I wasn’t aware that it was mine to break.” He said softly, quietly. “I only ever wanted you to ache as I did, I didn’t intend to break you so fully.”

“You’re not making any fucking sense right now. _You’re not making any fucking sense._ ”

“I think you know what I mean. Somehow, you always do.” He replied. “I know you destroyed my Horcruxes, and I suppose I should be angry at you, but I find myself unable to muster anything other than adoration whenever you look at me like that.”

“Like what?” She said, her wand arm never wavering. “Like what?”

“Like you don’t want to kill me, but you will anyway.” He said, as he kneeled to the ground. She followed. “You are a big hypocrite, Hermione Granger, but I find that I rather don’t mind.”

“A hypocrite.”

“Yes, the biggest one.” He said quietly. “You told me you wouldn’t burn the world down just to piece it back together again. And you told me you didn’t care much for the loss of human life. You told me you would only change it as it is now. Am I but a single change to be made, my love?”

She caressed his cheek and kissed him on the mouth one last time. “You are the world.” She said. “You are the world.”

And after the aftermath of a brilliant green light, and the dying out of her stars and universes and streams, she held him in her arms as she howled, and howled, and howled, and then time tore them away from each other, until she was once again alone in a world that fit her like a heartless ring and a cold journal.

* * *

She let the lilies take root in her lungs, and let the thorns shred her heart into pieces. She wonders, distantly, if she would be reborn pure again, but she knew that the funeral pyres inside of her ribs would be with her for all of time.

**Author's Note:**

> White lilies symbolize rebirth, and purity, and the narration of the story jumps from Hermione in 'present day' and Hermione in Tom Riddle era, in case you were confused. Do leave kudos and a review, I would really appreciate it!


End file.
